- Meghan Stabler
By Meghan Stabler | HRC Board of Directors, Houston
“I’m a politician which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.”
Sure, it’s a movie line, and it’s a comment that I use in some of my speeches regarding politicians, but it is also so true.
We are maybe 48 hours from a vote to finally repeal the discriminatory law called “don’t ask don’t tell.” Yet there is significant risk! Not passing now will likely put repeal on hold for a minimum of two-plus years.
Our opponents are doing whatever they can to stop the bill. I just received this message from one group called Public Advocate of the United States: “All the Homosexual Lobby needs is for their lapdogs in the Senate to rubber stamp the bill and it will go to Barack Obama’s desk for his signature. And unless you take action RIGHT NOW, he’s going to succeed. Tell [your Senator] to PROTECT our armed forces and vote AGAINST the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
So our opponents are making all the last minute calls to Congress they can. Is our community?
Now is not the time for us to rest, now is not the time for us to stop calling Congress.
Just because a senator says they will vote for DADT repeal means they’re keeping options open, just as the politician said in the Hunt for Red October quote at the opening of my note. We need some Republicans to vote YES, but just because they or their staffers say they will is no guarantee. If they are not a bill co-sponsor, then their vote is still an at-risk one.
So, share this note to your friends. Ensure they keep calling. Then call again. And again. Ask that they co-sponsor the bill. If not, hound them to do so, and make sure they understand history is the measure of actions of the past.
Keep calling. Call 202-224-Murkowski-6665, Snowe-5344, Voinovich-3353, Lugar-4814, Gregg-3324, Kirk-2854, Brown-4543.
Many mouths espouse themselves to be part of an all-inclusive LGBT union, but for too long now the T has been a silent consonant, not in sound but in consequence.
The title of the article https://dallasvoice.com/mission-accomplished-dadt-repeal-1057681.html should have been “Mission Partly Accomplished”..unless of course it has never been an LGBT union.
CMSgt Guy-Gainer and company find themselves attempting to absorb the significance of the DADT repeal. At long last, IT IS FINISHED. They have survived the scourging…the jeers and taunts, the scourges and humiliation that have been delivered on the road to Calvary. They bask in the glory of the day.
All is now well with the world. They dazzle with brilliance, their hearts oscillating with a heavenly resonance having regained their merited dignity and rightful stature in their resurrected bodies. Vindication has come to the LGB community—see they never were deviants after all. They will soon part company and evangelize the world. Yes, of course IT IS FINISHED—push the chairs in, turn off the lights, and lock the doors finished.
Yet, although they were deep in thought and self-reflection, it was not quite deep or reflective enough.
Maybe in their jumping for joy, they forgot their spectacles at the signing ceremony and forgot to take a second deep and reflective look at the infamous “all-inclusive” acronym: LGBT.
Had they done so, they would have detected a barely-there, almost illegible, fading and dimming—symbol that resembled a—cross? Their sacrifice “on the cross” did not absolution for everyone create. As they would draw their reflective heads back they would have realized that the cross was actually a T and part of a panoramic acronym: LGBT. Oh wait—there is a domino still standing…you think?
No IT IS NOT FINISHED. There is a cause yet to be fought for. The future is not brighter for all. His tears of joy should have been tears of sorrow for the other “family” members swept overboard and extending an arm above the water for a helping hand from a “loved” one. Yeah right. If the mission objective has been only for LGB members then ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED stands as historical fact. If the objective has been inclusively LGBT, then my preceding sentence is false—or are my eyes cross-eyed?
Delphi